Colonial-era video game features improved ‘input, output’ combat
“Assassin’s Creed III,” the highly anticipated magnum opus from Ubisoft Montreal, exchanges the lavish, bustling streets of 15th century Italy for a young and revolutionary Colonial America.
And standing in for the charismatic lady’s man, Ezio Auditore, is the young, Native American assassin, Connor Kenway. Connor, representative of the American Revolution itself, is idealistic and juvenile in his pursuit of freedom from the oppressive Templars. Similarly ambitious is the game itself, and while it occasionally succeeds in what it hopes to achieve, it also begins to lose sight of what it wants to be amid all the features it tries to implement.
“Assassin’s Creed III,” mechanically, is such a dense game that it sometimes boggles the mind. In addition to the usual swordplay, free running and assassinating, the game features naval warfare, hunting, a trading system, crafting and much more. That all of this manages to coexist without proving overwhelming is a testament to the game’s deftly structured pacing. However, occasionally the disparate nature of the various gameplay mechanics gives the impression that “Assassin’s Creed III” is a patchwork of a few different games, held together by only the thinnest threads of purpose.
Outside the game’s two main urban areas of Boston and New York is the vast, open expanse of wildlife and foliage that is the Frontier. It is amid these lofty branches of the New World that Connor feels most at home. Running and leaping between trees at breakneck speed and grace is second nature for Connor, and the act of doing it brings back some of the magic of free running from the original Assassin’s Creed.
Connor will spend much of his time split between stalking enemies through Boston alleys and managing his private life at his Homestead on the Frontier. And just as Connor leads this double life, so too does the game take on a sort of dual existence. The systems which make up Frontier life (hunting, trading, crafting and so on) are subtly yet cleverly interconnected, and much the same with the assassin gameplay, but the two rarely mingle. In this way, the game comes off as fractured, and the main story and side content stand in fairly stark contrast with one another.
This would prove less of an issue were it not for the fact that the main missions themselves are very hit-or-miss. Combat feels better than it ever has, as the series has finally found a good balance between its “small input, big output” design philosophy (pressing B once for a double counter has never triggered so much beautiful animation) and a real difficulty curve (it’s actually possible to be killed now). However, combat is only a small part of the story gameplay, the rest being made up of (for the most part) eavesdropping, chase scenes and tailing, all of which are fairly bland (and sometimes intensely frustrating).
And what’s even more disheartening is that historic events which should have made for brilliant missions, such as Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride or the Battle of Lexington and Concord, are instead reduced to bland horse riding and shallow real-time strategy elements.
The lackluster mission design is a shame, too, because the series’ strongest storytelling is at work here, complete with memorable villains who inhabit an interesting, morally gray area. Throughout the story, there are plenty of the twists and turns that the series is known for, including one especially brilliant one about one-third of the way into the game. And for those that care (and you should), the game has some poignant political commentary about the way the founding of America is disingenuously revered as the apex of freedom (hinting that the founding fathers were kind of hypocritical bigots).
“Assassin’s Creed III” is a divisive game, given that players fully invested in the series may find its shortcomings to matter very little. The fact that the basic gameplay still feels fantastic, the art design is so stunningly detailed and the narrative is so intriguing makes it easy to overlook the faults.
The reason the game feels so disappointing in spite of its technical proficiency is that, being the fifth actual game in the series, it should have offered more than just iterations and a new setting. At this point, after hundreds of gameplay hours, elements which were so captivating in “AC2” are rendered mostly mundane. Rather than reconstruct the core of the gameplay, “AC3” is instead bloated with features on top of features. And so players are left to hope the next “Assassin’s Creed” will offer them something truly revolutionary.